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GAZETTE
JULY/AUGUST 1983
matter of routine). Becoming a partner depends on
ability (the U.S. legal profession considers itself a
bastion of meritocracy), good connections with
potential clients and a little luck. Wall Street itself seems
the physical embodiment of the high expectations of its
daily denizens.
Corporate Lawyers and Litigators
Apart from partners and associates, the other great
dichotomy in a Wall Street law firm is that between the
corporate lawyers and the litigators. The latter, whose
natural loquaciousness is said to be linked to the
preponderance among them of people of Irish and
Jewish descent, are the courtroom specialists.
Corporate attorneys, on the other hand, the master
draftsmen of contracts, securities, licenses and deeds of
trust, regard it as a matter of professional pride to keep
their clients out of undignified courtroom wrangles. One
of the oldest and most distinguished of the giant firms
tried to establish the notion early in this century that the
best corporate law firms could dispense with litigation
departments altogether. Contracts would henceforth be
lapidarian, pellucid and shorn of the tiniest ambiguity,
so that no dispute could ever arise as to their terms or
meaning. As the litigators relate with evident
satisfaction, the reality of America's adversarial culture
quickly asserted itself and restored the importance of ex-
pert forensic skills. Litigation is in fact the fastest-
growing area of current Wall Street practice, since
during a recession businessmen are more willing to bring
cases to court which previously they might have settled
or even ignored. Indeed, business activity in some sec-
tors is so slack, one partner told me, that some corporate
executives seem only too pleased to forego dull days in
the office in order to give evidence and watch the
spectacle of a courtroom entertainment presented by
their expensive Wall Street impresario! Nirvana for the
corporate lawyers is a giant corporation merger or a
major issue of shares or Government securities and
young associates can scan the shelves of their in-office
libraries for outstanding examples of past corporate
deals — the documents flowing from each transaction
are put together in enormous leather-bound volumes,
embossed on the spine with the names of the responsible
attorneys in gold lettering. It is the instinctive 'AOC'
('abundance of caution') of the corporate lawyers that
makes their department a much calmer and cooler
environment than the frantic pace of the litigation
section, where life is measured out in terms of the next
impossible deadline for lodging papers in court.
The litigators have been responsible for the so-called
'document explosion' in U.S. law, which happened
when they were given astonishingly wide powers of pre-
trial discovery and deposition-taking. Any document
can be sought or question asked which, in the opinion of
the requesting attorney, is
or may be
relevant to the later
trial, an openended indulgence which has the obvious
consequence that quite literally
every
document will be
sought and
every
question asked, so that each side can
decide retrospectively what is or is not relevant! One
senior trial lawyer told me of a witness who proved to be
every American attorney's dream — clearly anticipating
future legal battles and the descent of swarms of
inquisitorial lawyers, he had carefully recorded on index
cards of three different colours the date, time and key
points of every single conversation in which he was
involved that concerned the disputed transaction,
choosing the colour of the card on the basis of how
important he felt a conversation to have been! Attorneys
try hard to coach their clients for long deposition
sessions, and very often a stream of 'I don't know' or T
can't remember' responses is the result. This can, in
turn, provoke quite extraordinary (and, in Irish terms,
quite unprofessional) exchanges of abuse between each
side's attorneys, though a freewheeling use of
derogatory language in describing your opponent's
arguments is a common enough tactic, even in written
legal briefs, in New York. The trial, if it ever manages to
take place (the New York courts are utterly besieged by
eager litigants) will be a much-abbreviated summary of
all that has been going on for years during depositions
and discovery.
Paralegals
The Americans have invented a new breed of legal
specialist called the 'paralegal', a neologism which
presumably works by analogy with the longer-
established 'paramedical'. Paralegals ensure the smooth
operation of the nuts and bolts of legal work, getting
papers served on opponents or lodged in court at the due
time and keeping track of the Everests of paper which
flow from depositions and discovery. Not usually
lawyers themselves (though one of ours had the almost
unique distinction of being called to the New Mexican
Bar), qualificationitis has nevertheless caught up with
them and a diploma for paralegals is now available at
many law schools. They sometimes drift into law from
other callings — one of our best was a dissatisfied
schoolteacher. In this yearning to become involved with
the law they show an inclination completely opposite to
that which exists among not a few lawyers. 'Attorneys
here are people who never decided what they wanted to
be when they grew up', one associate told me (referring
no doubt to the profession as a whole, rather than just to
his colleagues at the firm). Certainly, some of those I
met had allowed their inner thoughts to inhabit other,
not necessarily loftier, planes of existence. Apart from
the associate who dreamed of being a train driver on the
Long Island Railroad, there was a brilliant trial lawyer
who, though relishing the trappings of Wall Street
success (the sleek yacht, the magnificent gentlemen's
clubs perched atop all the best skyscrapers), in his heart
felt his true vocation to have been as an austere classics
professor in the mould of A. E. Housman.
Although all the firm's partners met once a month for
a general strategy session, day-to-day control was vested
in a discreet troika of the hightest-earning partners,
known as the 'Executive Committee'. One of the top
three was among the first woman partners in a Wall
Street law frim and in 1975 she spearheaded the launch
of a quite spectacular outreach of the American feminist
movement, a commercial bank founded and governed
entirely by women and still flourishing today in midtown
Manhattan. But even the Executive Committee cannot
devote itself too deeply to administration and the trend
in Wall Street few offices since the mid-70s had been to
bring in a full-time professional office manager to
organize the network of legal secretaries (a profession
growing even faster than the legal profession itself), file-
room personnel, telephonists and messengers who form
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